t succeed in getting it produced at Munich, for the orchestra and
singers declared that the music could not be performed. It is even said
that they got an eminent critic to draw up a formal document, which they
sent to Strauss, certifying that _Guntram_ was not meant to be sung. The
chief difficulty was the length of the principal part, which took up by
itself, in its musings and discourses, the equivalent of an act and a
half. Some of its monologues, like the song in the second act, last half
an hour on end. Nevertheless, _Guntram_ was performed at Weimar on 16
May, 1894. A little while afterwards Strauss married the singer who
played Freihild, Pauline de Ahna, who had also created Elizabeth in
_Tannhaeuser_ at Bayreuth, and who has since devoted herself to the
interpretation of her husband's _Lieder_.

* * * * *

But the rancour of his failure at the theatre still remained with
Strauss, and he turned his attention again to the symphonic poem, in
which he showed more and more marked dramatic tendencies, and a soul
which grew daily prouder and more scornful. You should hear him speak in
cold disdain of the theatre-going public--"that collection of bankers
and tradespeople and miserable seekers after pleasure"--to know the sore
that this triumphant artist hides. For not only was the theatre long
closed to him, but, by an additional irony, he was obliged to conduct
musical rubbish at the opera in Berlin, on account of the poor taste in
music--really of Royal origin--that prevailed there.

The first great symphony of this new period was _Till Eulenspiegel's
lustige Streiche, nach alter Schelmenweise, in Rondeauform_ ("Till
Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, according to an old legend, in rondeau
form"), op. 28.[173] Here his disdain is as yet only expressed by witty
bantering, which scoffs at the world's conventions. This figure of Till,
this devil of a joker, the legendary hero of Germany and Flanders, is
little known with us in France. And so Strauss's music loses much of its
point, for it claims to recall a series of adventures which we know
nothing about--Till crossing the market place and smacking his whip at
the good women there; Till in priestly attire delivering a homely
sermon; Till making love to a young woman who rebuffs him; Till making a
fool of the pedants; Till tried and hung. Strauss's liking to present,
by musical pictures, sometimes a character, sometimes a dialogue, or a
situat